The Graves of the Guilty (Hope Street Church Mysteries Book 3) (27 page)

“I guess they won’t be rushing in to buy in this weather,” one of the salesmen told another. “Let’s grab lunch. Harry’ll cover for us, won’t ya, Harry? He brown-bagged it today.”

The third man gave a friendly wave but didn’t look up from his crossword. “Bring me something for dessert.”

As the two men departed, Ashley emerged from the restroom. She spied Cooper and waved her over. “I heard your message and dashed right over.” She took off a pair of leather gloves and stuffed them in her Burberry handbag. “I hope you know what you’re doing. Lincoln’s visiting with his daddy and it wasn’t the kind of visit that could be interrupted. So you get me instead.” She removed a slip of paper from her coat pocket. “We’ve got carte blanche to ask Alek anything we want. It’s like having a note from home telling the teacher to give you recess all day long.”

“Thanks, Ashley.”

“Is this about Maria’s box?” Ashley asked. “You never called to tell me what was inside.”

“I’m sorry, but there wasn’t a real lead to follow until today.” Cooper showed her sister the folder of titles. “The secret lies with these, but we need Alek to look up the vehicle identification numbers on her computer in order to see the history of each of these cars.”

“Let’s get on with it, then.” Ashley moved forward impatiently.

Following Ashley to Alek’s office, Cooper wondered how receptive the finance manager would be when presented with a note from Lincoln requesting that she aid his wife and sister-in-law.

Ashley knocked lightly on an open door midway down the corridor. Alek, who was talking on the phone, indicated they should enter. She wrapped up her call with a few terse but polite phrases, and then rose, eyeing the sisters with interest. “What an unexpected pleasure,” she said, sounding completely insincere. “How can I help you?”

“Could we sit down for a moment?” Cooper asked, warning Ashley with her eyes to let her take the lead.

“Of course.” Alek made a slow, regal gesture with her slim hand and resumed her seat. She waited patiently for Cooper to speak, her unreadable blue eyes shifting from one sister to the other.

“I was wondering if you could look up these car titles on your computer,” Cooper began. “I’d like to see if any of them have liens or anything . . . unusual in their history.”

Alek looked surprised by the request. “If there is a lien, it will say right on the title.” But she accepted the folder and flipped through the papers. “Where did you get these?”

Cooper hesitated. She didn’t want to mention Maria, but as she was asking Alek to bend the rules, she figured the woman deserved to know the truth. “From Maria Gutierrez.”

“She should not have these in her possession,” Alek said in overt disapproval. “These are the original titles and are supposed to be in the owners’ possession. Not only that, but Mrs. Gutierrez is no longer an employee of Love Motors.”

“Perhaps that’s why she gave them to me,” Cooper said, knowing she was offering a lame reply. “I believe they contain a clue as to why her son was murdered.”

Alek seemed to ponder Cooper’s bold statement for several seconds. “I’d like to help, of course, but it would be highly unethical for me to look up a vehicle’s history without the owner’s permission.”

Ashley, who had been miraculously silent up to that moment, leapt out of her chair. “You have
Lincoln’s
permission. And if Lincoln Love says it’s okay, it must be. I do believe the name of this dealership is
Love Motors,
so let’s get on with the search.” Without waiting for Alek to respond, she unfolded her husband’s note and placed it on the other woman’s desk. “Can we stand behind you while you search your database or whatever? Otherwise we can’t see the computer screen.”

Retrieving the note, Alek read it over carefully and then issued a small sigh of irritation. “Very well.”

She didn’t bother waiting for Cooper and Ashley to reposition themselves and Cooper saw a password screen and another screen flicker by as Alek rapidly typed in a set of VIN numbers. She recited a stream of information in a robotic monotone. “This is the vehicle history on a 2010 Cadillac Escalade. The vehicle was new when purchased. The vehicle was purchased here, at Love Motors, November second of last year. The vehicle was delivered to Love Motors direct from the factory and had 400 miles on it at the time of purchase. Purchase price was $78,900. No lien. The buyer was a Mr. Charles Hancock.”

Cooper was having trouble viewing the entire screen. It looked as though there was a note added at the bottom of the vehicle report. “Can you scroll down, please?”

Alek complied. “Ah,” she read, her voice belying a sudden interest. “The vehicle was reported missing on December twentieth.”

Removing her notepad from her purse, Cooper asked Alek to enter in the next VIN number. It appeared that six vehicles, all costing over fifty thousand dollars, had been reported missing over the past four or five months.

Cooper turned to Ashley. “Didn’t you say that sales were unusually high for the months of January and February? The months when sales are usually the most sluggish?”

Ashley nodded. “Yes. Lincoln said some of the sales went to buyers in the same family.”

Tapping on her notepad, Cooper thought for a moment and then looked at Alek. She pulled the top three titles off the pile. “Can we find out if Charles Hancock, Sandy Mitchell, Burt Knupp, and the rest of these people were some of those family buyers?”

“It’s possible.” Alek regarded Cooper with her icy stare. “But what would the reason be?”

Feeling excited, as if she were finally on the right trail, Cooper clasped her hands together to prevent them from wrapping around the finance manager’s long neck. “Because they may have committed insurance fraud. And Maria Gutierrez and Hector might have helped them.” The picture was becoming clearer now.
And they were working under Albion Ivan’s orders.
Cooper kept this thought private.

“What?” Ashley and Alek exclaimed in unison. Cooper inhaled and then explained her theory as succinctly as she could. “Listen. Hector produced fake IDs and sold stolen Social Security cards as well. Charles Hancock’s stolen card, for example. Hector would then make ‘Charles’ a matching driver’s license and ‘Charles’ would come here to buy a Cadillac Escalade using the real Charles Hancock’s credit. He’d then report the car as stolen and resell it. Probably privately.”

Alek issued a dry laugh. “You have a vivid imagination.”

“Do I? How long does it take for the bank holding the loan to look for a title after the sale’s gone through?”

“That depends,” Alek said evasively.

Ashley threw out her arms. “Just give us an estimate.”

“Financial institutions don’t really look for the title in the first ninety days,” she replied tersely.

“That’s plenty of time!” Cooper was certain she was on the right track. “Look, even if I don’t have the details or the lingo right, there was a reason Maria gave me these titles. She wanted me to set the record straight, and something’s clearly shady about half of these cars going missing in less than two months after their purchase dates.” Cooper gave Alek a hard stare of her own. “I need to know more about these customers and their relatives or spouses. This could be a major case of insurance fraud.”

The finance manager looked at her watch, an expensive gold affair with a gemstone-studded face, and then closed the program on her computer. “We’ll have to go back to the file room to view their individual customer folders, but the only records we have in there are the bill of sale, the odometer statement, and the title application.”

Cooper said, “And a copy of their driver’s license.”

Alek nodded. “We moved the files when our offices were getting painted in the fall and we never got around to moving them back. We’re storing them in an oversized closet in the service area. Let me get my keys and I’ll take you there.”

“This is
so
exciting!” Ashley squealed. “You’re onto something, Coop! You’ve got that bloodhound air about you.”

“Not bloodhound, bulldog,” Cooper corrected. “I’m not leaving this place until I have the proof Investigators McNamara and Johnson need to put that strip-club slimeball in jail.”

Alek arched an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you’re investigating, but I too am intrigued as to why Maria had copies of these titles.” She wiggled a bunch of keys. “If you’ll follow me.”

The three women buttoned their coats, wrapped scarves around their necks, and hunched their shoulders as they stepped out into the freezing rain. The dealership seemed deserted. The only cars in the rear parking lot had sale stickers on the windows and were being coated by a thin but slick layer of precipitation.

Hustling forward to the employee entrance of the darkened service area, Alek unlocked the door’s dead bolt. She waited for the two sisters to enter and then shut and locked the door behind them.

When Cooper threw her a questioning glance, Alek gestured at the assortment of cars in the service bay. “I’m responsible for these cars while we’re in here. After all, it will take some time to sort through a dozen folders.”

“Right.” Cooper knew that Alek’s comment made sense, but it was creepy to be in the empty garage. Their footsteps echoed on the cement and the rain drummed on the metal roof above. Alek walked with brisk confidence to a shadowy hallway at the rear of the building. She flicked a switch and a weak fluorescent light hummed to life, casting an orange-yellow glow on the gray carpet and the gray-and-beige speckled wallpaper.

“Do you come out here to file things?” Ashley asked. “Seems like a hassle.”

Alek opened the door to a small room and turned on another overhead light. “Someone of a more junior position does that.” She made a beeline for the row of horizontal file cabinets covering the longest wall of the room. “The drawers are arranged alphabetically. Feel free to get started. I need to make a phone call and then I’ll return to help you.” She turned and walked away, closing the door gently behind her.

“Let’s hurry, Coop,” Ashley whined. “It’s cold and spooky in here.”

Cooper nodded and, because she opened the drawer containing the letter M, began to search for Sandy Mitchell’s file. Ashley chose Charles Hancock.

“Look at this!” Cooper exclaimed and rushed to Ashley’s side with Mrs. Mitchell’s file. “She
did
take a loan out on her car.”

“Then why does the title say ‘no lien’?” Ashley sounded doubtful.

“Maria must have changed the title electronically,” Cooper replied. “That’s what she felt guilty about. She falsified the titles on the computer, and since only the DMV can print them out, they’d be printing whatever Maria inputted into the database. See here? Mr. Ronald Mitchell also borrowed money to buy his Saab, but his title claims no lien as well.”

Ashley shook her head. “I can’t believe it! She was such a sweet lady!”

“She told me that she didn’t think she was hurting anyone. All she did was hit a few keys and collect money from Ivan. Hector took care of the forged document side of things and he got paid, too.” Cooper laid the Mitchell file on her lap. “If you hadn’t found Miguel’s body, who knows how long this scheme would have gone on?”

The door eased open. Alek entered, gripping something shiny. “Not for much longer, clever Cooper. We only stay in one place for three or four months. It’s too risky to continue after that. Someone always gets greedy. Someone always threatens to talk.”

Cooper gaped at the woman blocking the exit.

Alek raised the object in her hand and the light glinted off the metal. It was a gun, a very substantial and lethal-looking gun. “Yes, you’ve figured out a portion of our operation, but not all. Unfortunately for you, you won’t have the opportunity to show those pesky policemen just how clever you are. No one knows you’re back here, and by the time they find your bodies I’ll be long gone.” She smiled her first genuine smile and raised the gun.

“Oh, please!” Ashley cried. “You can’t shoot me! I’m pregnant!”

18

Even though the gun was being aimed at her, Cooper turned to her sister. “You’re pregnant?” She didn’t meet Ashley’s eyes but glanced over her head, hoping to spot something on top of the file cabinet she could use as a shield against Alek’s weapon. She saw nothing but a thick coat of dust. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Ashley sniffed. “We wanted to wait until we saw the doctor—to make sure everything looks the way it should.” Her blue eyes were wide with fear. “Please don’t hurt us!” she pleaded with Alek. “No one needs to know about this. We have money . . .”

Alek laughed and took three steps in their direction, holding the gun in a comfortable, familiar grip. “Money, but no brains. Your husband is the most gullible fool I’ve ever met. He was so desperate to impress his
daddy
that he was eating out of my hand from the moment I presented him with my fake resume.” She made a
tsk, tsk
sound with her tongue. “As long as our sales numbers went up, he didn’t bother to examine a single piece of paperwork. If he did, he might have noticed that all those expensive cars we sold were reported missing soon after the first payment was made. The banks never saw a second one.”

“And Maria Gutierrez falsified the titles,” Cooper said, finally understanding Maria’s confession.

“For the DMV, yes. Of course, we have someone on the inside there, too. We are very thorough and we pay well.” She looked around the sparse room with disgust. “There are so many people trying to start a new life in this country, and they’re more than willing to type a few little words in exchange for cash.”

“You knew Maria Gutierrez when she lived in Norfolk.” The pieces began to fit together, forming a complete picture. “Double A Autos! You’re the other A!”

Alek uttered a haughty snort. “We train many of our special employees there. Maria, Nina, Hector, Miguel . . . call them what you will. Except for Nina, they all worked under false names. We’ve already operated in Roanoke, but I wanted to live near my brother, so I interviewed for jobs with five dealerships in this city.” She cast Ashley a look of pity. “As soon as I met Lincoln Love, I knew I’d found the perfect boss and the perfect dealership. Maria was hired first and then I came aboard a few months later. It was so thoughtful of the former title clerk to decide to move to California. Like I said, this was the perfect place.”